Ruvo di Puglia (; ) is a city and comune (municipality) of 25,457 inhabitants (as of 2017) in the Metropolitan City of Bari in Apulia.
It is a major art city of Apulia, and a major Apulian tourist destination. Part of the Alta Murgia national park, which contains its own operational office, it is home to the Jatta National Archaeological Museum, known for its many Hellenistic period pieces including the Vase of Talos, a community symbol. It is also home to the Municipal Art Gallery of Contemporary Art, named after Domenico Cantatore, a ruvestine expressionist and cubist painter. His artwork is kept there. Additionally, the city houses the Book Museum at Palazzo Caputi, where important volumes of medieval and renaissance poetry originates from. It is also the third largest municipality in the Metropolitan City of Bari. It is an oil city. The city has a strong economy based on oil production, an important wine producer, and a major industrial research center of the Apulian region.
Physical Geography
Territory
The countryside of Ruvo with its vineyards, olive groves, and arable land is one of the largest in the Land of Bari. It fell within the production areas of the Altamura Lentil which obtained the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) in 2017. The territory has an area of 222.04 km2 and borders to the north with the Bisceglie comune, to the north-east with the Terlizzi comune, to the east with the Bitonto comune, to the south-east with the Altamura comune, to the south with the Gravina in Puglia commune, to the south-west with the Spinazzola and Andria comunes, and to the west with the Corato comune. The territory, not only that included in the Alta Murgia National Park, has the typical characteristics of an Apulian karst landscape: sinkholes, karst valleys, among which the upper course of the Lama Balice (otherwise known as the Tiflis stream) is remembered, as well as caves, including the Grave della Ferratella, which is the deepest in the region, and the Abisso di Notarvincenzo. The surface drainage is largely directed to the Adriatic Sea, but there are extensive endorheic areas, among which the largest are that of Calentano, drained by karst sinkholes, and that of the Pantano, adjacent to the inhabited center and drained by an artificial tunnel designed in the early 1900s. The countryside is also characterized by two large tectonic valleys, where there are modest amounts of non-karst soils, which contain large amounts of clay, sand, and pebbles. The valleys are home to surface water strata, which have been exploited since ancient times with wells that are partly still usable, which favors nearby ancient settlements.
Flora and fauna
The Adriatic side has a wooded scrub, covering 1100 hectares, including numerous oak trees, typical of the area, while in the hinterland the greater exposure to the winds has created a selective vegetation characterized by shrubs and brambles. In the countryside, 1500 plant species have been identified, among which the Austroitalic stipa stands out. In the pastures there are endemic species such as wild orchids and herbaceous layers characterized by ferules, asphodels and grasses. Typical of the area, among the spontaneous vegetation, is undoubtedly the cardoncello mushroom while in the woods, in addition to Downy Oaks, fragni, holm oaks, Turkey oaks and farnetti prevail. In the undergrowth there are species of gigari and peony mascula.
The habitat of the Alta Murgia does not offer specimens of large animals but can include the presence of foxes, wild boars, hares, hedgehogs and vipers. However, the existence of numerous species of insects and birds is of particular interest. Typical of the area are the calandrelle, the larks, the cappellacce and the tottaville. The group of birds of prey is also quite numerous among which there are sparrow hawks, red kites, brown kites, bianconi, lanari and an important population of lesser kestrels. The karst environments are instead characterized by specimens of Italian crested newt, toad, tree frog and edible frog while the dry and stony aspect of the Murgia favors the existence of reptiles such as the Kotschy gecko and the Leopard Snake.